Why Jack Sparrow is the best character in Pirates of the Caribbean

My son and I had a long discussion about Pirates the other day. We like to tear apart movies, tv shows, books, and pretty much everything else to figure out what works and what doesn't in their storytelling.

I'm a big pirate fan. Swashbuckler is one of my top all-time favorite movies along with Cutthroat Island and Muppet Treasure Island. I love a good pirate story. To be clear, I love the romanticized idea of pirates, not real-life pirates. I love swashbuckling stories with adventure and dashing rogue heroes. The first Pirates of Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl, ticked all those boxes for me. The second movie was just an exercise in very lazy storytelling. It could have been more epic than the first one but they knew they'd make money so they made a craptastic movie. The third one was better but a little too mystical to really be a good pirate yarn. The fourth and fifth movies were okay, fun pirate hijinks but on the forgettable side of things. I still own them all and plan to have a pirate marathon soon that also includes my other favorite pirates, including the space pirates.

But on to the real subject of this essay: Jack Sparrow.

Jack Sparrow is one of the best conflicted, flawed, anti-heroes out there. Part of that is due to the fun acting that Johnny Depp brings to the character, but most of it is the writing that brought him to life.

Jack Sparrow is too moral to be a good pirate but not moral enough to be a good citizen. He wants desperately to be respected, or at least feared, as a pirate captain but he isn't ruthless enough to achieve it. When we're introduced to him, he's the captain of pretty much nothing. All he has is his hat. And his character. His crew mutinied and stranded him on a desert island when he had misgivings about taking a cursed treasure, which leads to the whole set-up in Curse of the Black Pearl.

You think the story is about Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan? It's really, at its heart, about Jack Sparrow. All the movies are about him. He's the catalyst. He's the reason any of this happened.

The whole scene of him sailing his horrible little sinking boat into the harbor, almost getting arrested, tricking the guards, then giving it all up to rescue a woman he just noticed has fallen into the ocean sums up who he is. What does he truly desire? Adventure. Treasure. But most of all, he wants fame and glory as the best pirate captain to ever sail the seven seas. He wants his Black Pearl back. Like Captain Kirk, his first love is his ship and the ocean he sails on. He steps foot in Port Royale on a mission to get his ship back from his backstabbing crew. He's focused on that goal. But then he sees Elizabeth fall from the wall into the water. She doesn't surface. He's torn between his mission and knowing if he doesn't rescue her, she will drown. No one else noticed her fall. She obviously isn't going to swim to safety. So instead of sneaking past the guards, Jack hands them his sword and his hat and dives in.

He saves Elizabeth and even as she is recovering, he's being arrested. He knew he would be as soon as he chose saving her over sneaking into the town. His only hope is that his good deed will win him some clemency. But he's a pirate and all pirates are evil. So off to jail he goes.

All through the movies, Jack Sparrow is repeatedly faced with similar choices - will he choose his own skin and selfishness or will he choose the higher moral ground and sacrifice what he wants to help others? He makes what should be the ultimate choice at one point by giving up his life to the kraken to save everyone else. Jack Sparrow repeatedly shows his higher moral character. He isn't a good pirate because he cares too deeply for other people. Yet no one else shows him any respect. He's just a filthy pirate. No one is willing to see beyond the surface. Elizabeth glimpses it for a brief moment, when she almost chooses him instead of Will Turner. But Jack Sparrow is a pirate to her, not someone she could love wholly. Jack is trapped in a cage of his own making. He's made enough of a name as a pirate that he can't be seen as anything more, despite him being the most caring selfless character in the series. He's the one with the best moral compass. He's the most altruistic character. And yet no one else is willing to see him in that light.

His character has a nuance and depth to it that is obscured by the nature of the movie. It's just a pirate movie, popcorn fluff, no real substance, and yet I'd argue that if you pry open the pirate movie label, like Jack Sparrow, you will find hidden facets of a real gem to explore.

Except for that second movie. That was just dumb.